Latest / The Fourcast / RFK’s new British medical advisor on vaccines and Big Pharma

Transcript

RFK’s new British medical advisor on vaccines and Big Pharma · The Fourcast

• 0:00
  The whole system, unfortunately, has been corrupted, influenced
• 0:03
  by excess power of big corporations.
• 0:05
  That's really at the root of the problem.
• 0:07
  Your turn around on the vaccine and your claim that it causes
• 0:11
  more harm than good. Yes.
• 0:13
  That is obviously a view that is not held by the vast majority of
• 0:17
  medical opinion or academic opinion.
• 0:19
  If you're saying that the vaccines haven't saved lives,
• 0:22
  that's patently untrue, that I worry for the people in America
• 0:25
  and I worry for my friends and and colleagues that I know.
• 0:28
  Given what you've said about vaccines, yeah, are you going to
• 0:31
  go to America and say we should ban these mRNA vaccines for
• 0:36
  COVID? Absolutely.
• 0:37
  One of the first things we're going to do is we're going to
• 0:39
  say, listen, this is the evidence we need to pause.
• 0:41
  So you will stop it. That is the plan.
• 0:48
  Hello and welcome to the forecast.
• 0:50
  Asim Malhotra is a deeply controversial British
• 0:52
  cardiologist who has just been appointed as chief Medical
• 0:55
  advisor of the Make America Healthy Again campaign group Co
• 0:59
  founded by Robert F Kennedy Junior.
• 1:02
  It makes him one of the US Health Secretary's most
• 1:04
  influential medical advisors. And that's alarming doctors and
• 1:07
  academics around the world because Asim Malhotra, like RFK
• 1:11
  Junior, goes against the mainstream established opinion
• 1:14
  on many topics. Most controversially, he opposes
• 1:17
  the mRNA COVID vaccines, claiming they cause more harm
• 1:20
  than good. And he wants to end their use in
• 1:23
  America, even though people are still dying with COVID around
• 1:26
  the world. In the UK, hundreds of people
• 1:28
  are dying with COVID every month, yet Malhotra claims the
• 1:31
  virus is no longer deadly. And that's not all.
• 1:34
  He supports RFK genius decision to reinvestigate the totally
• 1:38
  discredited claims of a link between vaccines and autism amid
• 1:42
  alarming levels of vaccine skepticism in America and
• 1:45
  outbreaks of deadly measles. Now, many people will question
• 1:48
  whether a vaccine skeptic in the medical profession should be
• 1:51
  given a platform like this, but it's the platform he's been
• 1:54
  given in America which makes him powerful.
• 1:57
  On this forecast, we'll examine his claims and scrutinize them
• 2:00
  by also talking to Stephen Griffin, professor of virology
• 2:04
  at Leeds University, who's a leading scientist in Britain and
• 2:07
  believes the claims being made by Malhotra and RFK Junior are
• 2:10
  not just wrong, but dangerous. I started by asking Aseem
• 2:14
  Malhotra what job he's been given.
• 2:17
  So I've been given a role as chief medical adviser to Maha
• 2:21
  Action, which is a nonprofit organization that essentially
• 2:25
  works at state level to do research, educate and legislate
• 2:29
  for the purposes of making America healthy again.
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  That's what Maha is, absolutely. And what will the role involve?
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  My role is essentially would be to synthesize and analyze data
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  on how to translate the best evidence into policy for
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  reversing chronic disease, because that's obviously the
• 2:45
  main focus of Maha. All the different levers that
• 2:49
  need to be pushed, whether it's around legislation on ultra
• 2:53
  processed junk food, whether it's on how to improve quality
• 2:57
  care within the healthcare system itself because there's a
• 3:00
  big problem of over medication, whether it's about also
• 3:03
  highlighting issues around lack of good quality data or
• 3:07
  independent data when it comes to dog doctors giving
• 3:10
  prescriptions. So as advisors or or or is there
• 3:14
  power? No, there is, but we are
• 3:15
  essentially in many ways we are an influence and educator and a
• 3:19
  lobbying group for the purposes of Maha.
• 3:22
  So we will be speaking to senators, we will be having
• 3:24
  trying to. Persuade states to take the.
• 3:26
  Absolutely, Absolutely. So we will have the ear, if you
• 3:30
  like, of the senators and and congressmen.
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  I mean, you're, you're, you're, it's quite a, an amazing sort of
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  transition for you, you know, and, and you've kind of got in
• 3:38
  with this whole movement in America over the last few years,
• 3:42
  I suppose through, through COVID isn't, I mean, how do you know
• 3:45
  RFK Junior? Really good question.
• 3:47
  So in 2022 and, and the back story here, question is I was
• 3:52
  somebody and it's really important to get this clarity in
• 3:55
  the narrative as well from from my perspective and for people to
• 3:58
  understand this. At the early 2021, I was one of
• 4:02
  the first people to take two doses of the COVID vaccine.
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  I assisted in a vaccine center. I felt I was doing it for not
• 4:09
  because I felt I was at risk, but before I was.
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  It was my duty to protect patients.
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  So for me, there was really no question in my mind that would
• 4:15
  be an issue. I was a bit skeptical efficacy,
• 4:17
  but I didn't think there was going to be harm.
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  Things then evolved by the summer of 2021, my father, who
• 4:24
  was a vice president of the BMA, had an unexpected cardiac arrest
• 4:27
  and died. There was actually an ambulance
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  delay involved in his death and that was.
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  He used to come on the program. Yes, absolutely.
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  And obviously, you know, he was the last surviving my immediate
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  family. It was obviously devastating for
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  me, but I was shocked, one, because he was a very thick guy
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  and two, I was also involved. Unfortunately, in the
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  circumstances where he had a witness cardiac arrest with two
• 4:46
  doctors doing CPR, ambulance was on its way.
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  He should have survived. The ambulance was delayed, so
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  that obviously contributed to his death, but his post mortem
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  findings didn't make any sense to me.
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  Had severe coronary artery disease.
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  There'd been an acceleration with compared to previous scans.
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  Several months later, research was published in one of the
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  prestigious cardiology journals called Circulation, and they
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  basically showed a mechanism of how the code vaccine increases
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  inflammation of the heart arteries which could accelerate
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  heart disease. And it was, it was pretty
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  interesting research and I thought, ah, this makes sense
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  now. If this is true, we are now
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  going to see increasing death rates from heart disease and
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  heart attacks. I spent months looking into this
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  into detail because I knew I was up against something really big
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  here, a complete change in narrative, me reluctantly having
• 5:29
  to change my mind, having felt almost angry to some degree that
• 5:33
  anyone was questioning the vaccines.
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  I had to go through that whole psychological process.
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  But the evidence was there. I published in a peer reviewed
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  journal, independently analyzed. So, you know, I maybe had my own
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  bias because my father died, I mean.
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  We've got to be careful when you talk about prestigious magazines
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  and peer review journals because there's lots of different
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  journals. There is, there are very
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  established journals like the British Journal, yes, there are
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  offshoots of that. There are things like owned by
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  it. So and I and I know you kind of
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  want people to say, you know when you use that language that
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  this is kosher. Yeah.
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  If you like for one to create a word, Chris, you're absolutely.
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  They're all disputed as you're. Absolutely correct.
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  Long story short, for me it became clear that there was good
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  evidence. Say more harm good from the
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  beginning. We should at least pause.
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  I went on GB News. As soon as I come out of the
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  studio, I get a missed call. I call it back as an American
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  number. I'd had no interaction with this
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  person before. It was Robert Kennedy Junior.
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  I'd got my number from someone. He'd hear what I'd done.
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  He said a scene. Doctor Mahatra, thank you for
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  your courage. This is Robert Kennedy Junior.
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  And after that, we then built a relationship in the sense I went
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  to America. I gave talks.
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  And you've become big in that whole sort of sphere of that,
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  you know, that sort of mag a crowd.
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  Yes. Tucker Carlson, Russell Brand,
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  not that he's MAGA, but you know, that whole sort of that
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  sort of is an alternative media world, of course, which has
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  really built your profile. It was your turn around on the
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  vaccine and your claim that it causes more harm than good.
• 6:51
  Yes. That is obviously a view that is
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  not held by the vast majority of medical opinion or academic
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  opinion or the wealth World Health Organization or any of
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  those sort of sure bodies. You think they're all wrong?
• 7:03
  No. It's, I think, listen, I don't
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  think they're all wrong. The people that I've interacted
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  with who share my concerns also can include the new director of
• 7:13
  the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharyya.
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  There is this. But who's also a very
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  controversial figure who was behind the Barrington
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  Declaration during COVID and all of that?
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  I mean, you know. He's a type, but he's been
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  proven to be correct the the mainstream.
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  What I'm saying is the the mainstream opinion yes doesn't
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  share this view. They think they say it's
• 7:30
  obvious. Look at the deaths from COVID.
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  It is clear that the vaccine did more good than harm.
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  Yes, there was harm, it was in small cases.
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  Yes, there is harm in hearts, information and you know and all
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  that. But it's again, it's a minority.
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  Krishnan It's a reflection of publicity bias.
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  So what I mean is, and this is, you know, This is why Channel 4
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  News and what you're doing is so important.
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  You know, what did, what did Malcolm X say?
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  Since Malcolm X said there's no greater entity than the media,
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  the media can make the innocent look guilty and the guilty look
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  innocent. This also applies to how medical
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  doctors receive information. In at the end of 2021, when I
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  had concerns around what was going on with mandates.
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  By that stage, by the way, Christian, there was more enough
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  evidence. So you know this, the vaccine
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  wasn't stopping infection or transmission.
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  That was different to the narrative we were told at the
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  beginning. Well, hang on, what do you mean?
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  I know this. Well, OK.
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  So do you, do you think from your experience in what you've
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  said that the that having the COVID vaccine stop people
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  getting I. I'm not an expert.
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  I'm not, I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna get into the oh,
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  sure, OK, to, to the, to the view.
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  But the but the basic fact, you know is that if you looked at
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  deaths from association with the vaccine, yes, it was about 119 I
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  think in one year in 2023 and the claim on the lives saved was
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  about 130,000. Yeah, now.
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  So for most people, these facts are pretty incontrovertible.
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  But they're based upon very, very biased, distorted
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  information. From my perspective, when I'm
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  pushing this, everything for me is about ethics and honesty and
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  transparency. I have no links to the drug
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  industry. I have no conflicts of interest.
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  What, what your critics say is that when you say you have no
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  conflicts of interest, well, actually what's happened over
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  the last three or four years with you is that you've become
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  very big with this group of people.
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  It's very big in American media. You're very charismatic as a
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  speaker. And you know, there's a lot of
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  money around that whole area as well.
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  And now you've got power, you've got the job.
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  So actually you, you know, you have had something to gain and
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  you've gained it. You've got real power now in
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  America with a man in charge of health who was seen as, you
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  know, a, a renegade, if you like, for want of a better word.
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  Some people people are much stronger than that, and that's
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  what you've got out of this. Christian I have we all have
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  biases OK we all have our personal biases.
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  One could argue if I was paying devil's advocate, it seems you
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  know become biased because he feels his dad was killed by the
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  vaccine and he's on some sort of vendetta, some mission.
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  That's why I felt I had to go through an independent peer
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  review where double blinded, where the peer reviews didn't
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  know who I was, didn't know I didn't know who they were and
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  they agreed that my hypothesis had merit.
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  OK, so that's one thing. I have lost jobs in the NHS
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  going back at 10 years. I actually in 2013 I published
• 10:20
  an article in the BMJ about saturated fat and cholesterol
• 10:23
  and statins. OK, there was a bit of push
• 10:26
  back. I actually, no, no, no, you
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  asked me about bias. I lost my job.
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  I worked for free in the NHS as a consultant.
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  I then carried on with all this backlash and I mean how many
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  people do that, by the way, right now, this role I've been
• 10:41
  offering. That benefits you.
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  It's worth saying. Is it being an honorary
• 10:44
  consultant in the NHS? No, She gives you a title that
• 10:46
  says I have, I am a consultant. But I have pride, that's what
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  I've worked hard for, and I'm here to put patient duty above
• 10:51
  anything else, so I have to keep trying.
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  It's not. Entirely selfless is what I'm
• 10:55
  saying, you know? But who then who is?
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  Who is? Is anybody in this world
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  completely selfless? I'm not saying I'm completely
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  selfless. I'm trying to do the best I can
• 11:01
  for my patients and I'm also open to discussion, debate.
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  The problem is you go to the root of the problem, Krishnan,
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  is our whole system unfortunately has been
• 11:09
  corrupted, influenced by excess power of big corporations.
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  That's really at the root of the problem.
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  And all we're experiencing now is the downstream effects of
• 11:16
  that. And now we're in the situation
• 11:18
  where we've got this pandemic of chronic disease, we've got
• 11:20
  worsening disease. You know, in the UK we've got
• 11:22
  life expectancy going down, one would argue, if doctors were
• 11:25
  actually doing the best to their ability, according to the best
• 11:27
  available evidence, Why is population health getting worse?
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  So. You know, given what you've said
• 11:32
  about vaccines, you know, are you going to go to America and
• 11:36
  say we should ban these mRNA vaccines for COVID, which is
• 11:41
  still being given? The rate of harm is so high and
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  COVID is now not no longer deadly Christians.
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  So even from a rational perspective, it's there's no
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  better time than now to say, OK. So what do you want to do?
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  Are you going to go to RFK Junior and say you know what,
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  you need to ban that? I've already had conversations
• 11:58
  with Robert Kennedy Junior about this.
• 12:00
  I think because I've got this independent role with my action,
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  absolutely. One of the first things we're
• 12:04
  going to do is we're going to say, listen, this is the
• 12:06
  evidence we need to pause. We need to maybe start getting
• 12:08
  them suspended in all these states, but also Christian,
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  what's really important. So you you will stop it.
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  That is, that is the plan. Where, where's, where's the sort
• 12:17
  of the freedom of people to go ahead with it?
• 12:20
  Come into that. As into lots of people believe
• 12:22
  in these accidents. Listen, I think that the case
• 12:25
  you. Think they shouldn't have the
• 12:26
  right to take them? Listen, no, listen, it's a very
• 12:30
  good everybody should have that. That's exactly what talk we need
• 12:32
  informed consent. So just to break it down, if
• 12:35
  some when a patient comes to me, one of the things I do which why
• 12:38
  people come and see me privately is I engage in something which
• 12:41
  is called shared decision making.
• 12:43
  It shouldn't be controversial, but it is.
• 12:45
  In terms of the other things you want to do in this new role, I
• 12:48
  mean, one of your other big skepticism is you.
• 12:51
  You talk about the overprescription of drugs, of
• 12:53
  course, and one of the drugs you think is massively
• 12:55
  overprescript, one of the class of drugs is statins.
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  Are you going to wage war on the prescription of statins?
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  No. In America, wage war on
• 13:02
  prescription of statins. I'm going to wage war on lack of
• 13:06
  informed consent in their prescription.
• 13:08
  So there is the highest standards of informed consent
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  Christian are what I just told you before breaking down
• 13:14
  information which is available OK on making sure patients are
• 13:17
  not coerced into exaggerating the benefits and exaggerating
• 13:21
  the safety. So all I'm saying is what is the
• 13:24
  best independent evidence telling?
• 13:25
  Us most patients just listen to their cardiologist and the
• 13:28
  cardiologist says, you know, I think you will benefit from
• 13:32
  taking this drug because it will reduce cholesterol and that will
• 13:35
  reduce the chances of you having a heart attack.
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  And most patients just listen to that.
• 13:41
  So, you know, if you're going to have an intervention that's,
• 13:44
  Yep, is meaningful, yes, you're gonna have to be quite radical
• 13:47
  about it and go against all the mainstream medical opinion.
• 13:51
  Well, it isn't though. You see, I will cite you 2015
• 13:54
  British Medical Journal. I'm the first author, chair of
• 13:57
  the medical colleges, chair of the GMC.
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  We actually wrote this is what we should be doing in medicine.
• 14:01
  It just hasn't been implemented yet.
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  Do you know why? Because, well.
• 14:04
  That's what I mean. There's one article that you
• 14:06
  wrote, but I mean no. But that was a campaign you.
• 14:08
  If you ring every cardiologist in London, most of them won't
• 14:11
  agree with you one statins. Well, it's not a question of
• 14:14
  yes, that's maybe true, but the question is, it's because we are
• 14:18
  not conditioned and trained to think in this way, Christian,
• 14:22
  it's a question, is this a question of training and
• 14:24
  changing the thinking and the approach to medicine.
• 14:26
  And it's big. It has to change from being more
• 14:28
  paternalistic and more so, you know.
• 14:30
  But now you're in a position to do something about it in
• 14:32
  America, so that's what are you going to do?
• 14:34
  Well, listen, I think we just want what most important thing.
• 14:36
  If you want to improve quality care, we need greater
• 14:39
  transparency, greater accountability.
• 14:40
  We need independent evaluation of the scientific evidence.
• 14:44
  The problem at the moment is we don't have that.
• 14:46
  I'm a practicing cardiologist where my patients invariably,
• 14:50
  within weeks of just changing their diet alone can send their
• 14:53
  type 2 diabetes into remission and come off the pills, bring
• 14:55
  their blood pressure down. So it's simultaneously
• 14:58
  empowering the profession to but.
• 15:00
  That is literally what every GP does.
• 15:02
  If you go to the GP with pre diabetes they don't stick you on
• 15:05
  drugs, they tell you to change your life.
• 15:07
  They do, but how many of them actually have got outcomes where
• 15:09
  they show, you know, because. It's really hard.
• 15:10
  That's the truth, and that's why we have a lot of a lot of drugs.
• 15:13
  It is hard. It is hard.
• 15:15
  You're right. Some people can do it and some
• 15:17
  people find it difficult. And that brings me to something
• 15:19
  else. The bigger issue, the broader
• 15:21
  issue, the base of the problem is actually what determines our
• 15:25
  health is socially and environmentally determined.
• 15:27
  So when you talk about the dietary changes, we've got this
• 15:30
  oversupply of ultra processed food, you know, even 70% of the
• 15:34
  food purchase in hospitals, Christian is ultra.
• 15:37
  Processed, yeah. And this is where you're mining
• 15:38
  a rich seam and lots of people agree with.
• 15:40
  Exactly so, so it needs to be both.
• 15:41
  So we need to educate and absolutely that needs to be part
• 15:44
  of the discussion. But the only way the education
• 15:46
  is going to work effectively is if we actually work on changing
• 15:48
  the environment. And for example, the ultra
• 15:50
  processed food stuff, I've said ultra processed food is a new
• 15:52
  tobacco. And if we implement changes, I,
• 15:55
  I, I advise Matt Hancock on this during the code pandemic, he
• 15:57
  said, I said, because I was somebody that was able to
• 15:59
  highlight links between COVID and obesity.
• 16:00
  And he asked me for advice and this was reported in the news.
• 16:04
  And I said, I said, Matt, I said, the single most important
• 16:07
  thing you can do in my view to potentially reverse obesity, the
• 16:11
  trends of obesity and chronic disease within a few years is
• 16:14
  treat the same things that we did for tobacco control,
• 16:16
  addressing the availability, the acceptability, the
• 16:18
  affordability. So taxation, banning tobacco
• 16:20
  advertising, you know public smoking bans, if you apply the
• 16:24
  same principles to ultra processed food you will see
• 16:27
  declines within a few years and in terms of chronic disease and
• 16:30
  improvements in population. And so is that what you're going
• 16:32
  to be pushing for in America? Absolutely, to tax the big food
• 16:34
  companies because they are very powerful.
• 16:36
  They are in America and they will resist it.
• 16:39
  They will resist it and we expect that to happen, but I
• 16:41
  think what's happening we're now at.
• 16:42
  A You know, you try taxing Coca-Cola.
• 16:44
  Yeah. Yeah, good luck with that one.
• 16:46
  Listen. We have to at least put the
• 16:48
  arguments forward about what we think is going to be best
• 16:50
  practice. And it's going to need media
• 16:52
  engagement. It's going to need public
• 16:53
  engagement. But Christian people are fed up.
• 16:55
  Now there's another big problem with all of this, which really
• 16:58
  upsets me. Lack of reduction in trust in
• 17:01
  the medical profession in the US.
• 17:03
  And I'm I'm sure this the situation because of the COVID.
• 17:06
  Pandemic, but you're feeding that because you're telling
• 17:08
  everybody you can't really trust your doctors.
• 17:10
  I'm not feeding that at all. They're doing it themselves.
• 17:13
  The whole handling of the pandemic has been.
• 17:14
  Atrocious. Well, if you go on Russell
• 17:16
  Brands podcast and talk about a lack of trust and all the rest
• 17:18
  of it, you are feeding into all of those conspiracy.
• 17:21
  Theories. No, no, it's not.
• 17:22
  It's not conspiracy theories. The issue is we shouldn't
• 17:24
  listen. For me, I don't want to under my
• 17:26
  trust in the profession, but if you actually look in America,
• 17:30
  there was an all time high trust in the medical profession in
• 17:33
  April 2020 at 74%. It's now down to 40%.
• 17:37
  Chris I'm not surprised because we live in a world in which
• 17:39
  social media fragments everything.
• 17:41
  There are lots of people like you saying you can't trust
• 17:43
  what's going on in the moment. Krishnan I'm sorry, I think it's
• 17:45
  legacy media have a losing trust and I think that's one.
• 17:48
  That's also true because of everything that's going on.
• 17:50
  Lifestyle is the big thing that could make a big difference to
• 17:54
  people's health outcomes. And that's been your big
• 17:56
  campaigning issue for many, many years.
• 18:00
  And, you know, you've just talked about how diets can, you
• 18:04
  know, rapidly can rapidly change things, you know, in a similar
• 18:09
  way that drug therapy can. But you also know that the
• 18:11
  biggest obstacle to that for a lot of people is poverty.
• 18:15
  Yes, housing, income, the ability to afford to buy fresh
• 18:19
  food rather than ultra processed food, that's the biggest
• 18:22
  challenge that you going to face in America, isn't it?
• 18:24
  Yeah, I think you're right, Krishnan, and I'm glad you
• 18:26
  raised that. We have to change the narrative.
• 18:28
  So part of it is lack of knowledge actually, you know.
• 18:31
  But you do know which government you're going to work for, don't
• 18:33
  you? And what?
• 18:34
  And what? What am I going to do?
• 18:36
  But it actually to to be it's very precise with you.
• 18:39
  I'm not actually working for the government, and in many ways
• 18:42
  you. Know oh, you are really I mean.
• 18:43
  Well, I mean, it may not technically, I mean.
• 18:46
  There's influence there, but it isn't actually, you know,
• 18:48
  precisely. I'm not actually working with
• 18:49
  government. It gives me independence to
• 18:50
  basically say what I want to say, which I think is best
• 18:53
  available evidence, which is good in a way.
• 18:54
  The other thing to mention, Christian as well in terms of
• 18:56
  like biases, fine. This particular role for me is
• 18:59
  unpaid. So I'm, because I care so much
• 19:03
  about this issue, I, I was willing to actually take an
• 19:06
  unpaid role for, for now to, you know, to try and help them get
• 19:09
  things moving forward. Hopefully at some point I'll get
• 19:11
  some remuneration. So I'm not obviously doing it
• 19:13
  for the money. But you but you've got an
• 19:15
  administration that is looking to make massive cuts to things
• 19:18
  like housing. Are you going to tell them
• 19:21
  they're wrong? That that will lead to, you
• 19:24
  know, more, more chronic disease.
• 19:25
  If that's if that's what the evidence tells us, yes, I will,
• 19:28
  absolutely. Absolutely will.
• 19:29
  It's obvious. You can say that for now, can't
• 19:30
  you? Because you know that poverty
• 19:31
  leads to more chronic disease. Absolutely.
• 19:33
  But I mean, I think the issue I, as far as I'm aware, I'm not
• 19:36
  aware of this particular data on them cuts to housing, but part
• 19:39
  of that discussion I've had discussions with senior people
• 19:41
  in the White House. I mean, these are all live.
• 19:42
  They're not necessarily announce, but they're live
• 19:44
  debates. And like, no, the Republican
• 19:45
  Party also wants to cut Medicaid.
• 19:47
  You know, a lot of people in that party.
• 19:49
  I mean, that's gonna affect people's chronic illnesses.
• 19:52
  Isn't it? I agree.
• 19:53
  And my role is to basically reflect as a doctor, not about,
• 19:57
  not ideologically, but what is it?
• 19:59
  What does it mean to what? Will be the effect?
• 20:01
  Absolutely. The other big issue in America
• 20:03
  and all around the world is the whole question of weight loss
• 20:06
  drugs, these GLP one drugs as they're called, and you are
• 20:09
  skeptical about them. Why?
• 20:11
  I think this could potentially be another public health
• 20:13
  disaster. I mean, I've got patients and
• 20:14
  people I know who have suffered quite serious side effects.
• 20:16
  I mean. There's gonna be a massive
• 20:17
  public demand for it. There already is, isn't there?
• 20:19
  Yeah. So that's gonna be a very
• 20:20
  unpopular message in America. There is, but it's being few.
• 20:23
  But at the end of the day, people still want the truth.
• 20:25
  For me, I still think that almost certainly the best
• 20:28
  approach is gonna be lifestyle, and I fear this is gonna end up
• 20:30
  being a public health disaster. To be honest, one other issue in
• 20:34
  in America that's very controversial worldwide is the
• 20:37
  Robert Kennedy view on vaccines and autism.
• 20:42
  Now we know what happened in this country with wild claims
• 20:46
  about the cause of autism and MMR.
• 20:49
  It was totally discredited. There's no evidence that
• 20:51
  vaccines cause autism. And Kennedy has reopened this
• 20:56
  debate and is now having a big inquiry into it.
• 20:59
  He's going to use you as his sort of medical bolster on that,
• 21:01
  isn't he? So I think he's already reached
• 21:05
  out to independent scientists that he knows to look into this.
• 21:08
  So I'm not directly involved first of all in that particular
• 21:10
  analysis, but. Do you agree it's nonsense?
• 21:13
  I think that there is enough of a concern out there.
• 21:16
  You know, you've got a massive problem with vaccine skepticism
• 21:19
  now, Krishna, which isn't good. I honestly think and by the way,
• 21:22
  I think we need to have a conversation that all vaccines
• 21:23
  are not the same. So the question is, this will
• 21:25
  hopefully give us some answers about whether or not there is a
• 21:28
  signal. And let me just get, let me just
• 21:30
  break this down. He says it's sort of it's an
• 21:31
  open inquiry into vaccines. He has said, you know, we are
• 21:35
  doing this to our children. He clearly believes that
• 21:38
  vaccines cause all. Listen, that was certainly his,
• 21:40
  the what he said before he got into this role.
• 21:42
  Of course, now he's in this role, he has a different, he has
• 21:44
  different stakeholders he's got to listen to, which I think is a
• 21:46
  good have you taught him about? It's a good thing I've not
• 21:48
  talked to him specifically about this, but I've talked to people
• 21:50
  who are linked to him on this issue.
• 21:52
  And and Christian, I'll be very honest with you.
• 21:54
  Up until recently, I would have said exactly what you're saying.
• 21:58
  This vaccine linked with autism is nonsense.
• 22:00
  We've got this whole history of what happened with Andrew
• 22:02
  Wakefield in the UK and The Lancet etcetera, but I've met
• 22:07
  many, many mothers of children who believe and listen.
• 22:12
  But that's exploitative and awful, isn't it, I?
• 22:14
  Mean, listen to me. Let me finish, Christian on
• 22:16
  this, all right? As a doctor, one of the most
• 22:18
  important principles of being a good doctor is listening to your
• 22:20
  patient. And there's something called
• 22:22
  mother's intuition. Now, I'm not saying it's
• 22:23
  correct, but there was such a grounds full of people that you.
• 22:26
  Won't have intuition into whether a vaccine caused autism.
• 22:30
  Let me finish the But this is where the inquiry starts.
• 22:33
  Why don't we try and look at it in a positive way rather than
• 22:35
  just shutting it down, saying this is, you know, and of course
• 22:38
  we don't want people to be making false claims, but there's
• 22:40
  enough of a concern out there. Krishnan, at least Robert
• 22:43
  Kennedy, I think, is doing absolutely the right thing,
• 22:45
  saying OK, most of these trials are going to.
• 22:47
  Well, you know what the argument is.
• 22:48
  The argument is because you cause such vaccine skepticism,
• 22:52
  uptake falls and people die and and in the meantime, you know,
• 22:57
  in order to sort of feed this mad world online.
• 23:00
  You've caused death. You're right.
• 23:01
  But the question of the vaccine skepticism is already we want to
• 23:05
  improve it. Yeah, right.
• 23:06
  The question is what is the best way to improve it?
• 23:08
  Censorship for is not working and it and it's not the best way
• 23:12
  forward. I think Bobby Kennedy's approach
• 23:13
  is absolutely correct. Just finally then you, you you
• 23:16
  go there with an enormous responsibility on your
• 23:19
  shoulders. And you know that the look,
• 23:22
  experts disagree. The one thing people really fear
• 23:25
  about your side of the argument, yes, is this.
• 23:29
  You know, you've got power now and you've got huge
• 23:32
  responsibility. Yeah, that you take that
• 23:34
  seriously. Yes, I will, and I think that's
• 23:37
  absolutely right for me. I just want to be the best
• 23:40
  possible doctor I can be and I take this as a huge duty and
• 23:43
  responsibility upon myself to do this.
• 23:45
  Asima Halter, thank you very much indeed.
• 23:47
  Thank you. Well, let's talk to Professor
• 23:50
  Stephen Griffin now, who joins us from Leeds now.
• 23:53
  Stephen, you're a virologist and part of the independent Sage
• 23:56
  Group of scientists who counter misinformation and put public
• 24:01
  health information into the public domain.
• 24:04
  I mean, why are people so worried about an appointment
• 24:08
  like this? I think it's really important
• 24:10
  because of the track record that Doctor Mahatra and others have
• 24:13
  got in, in, you know, fairly baselessly scrutinizing the
• 24:18
  Covic vaccines. And we're seeing, you know, a
• 24:21
  depreciation in the uptake of those vaccines year on year,
• 24:24
  even in the very small number of people who are now actually
• 24:27
  eligible for those according to the government.
• 24:29
  So this is having an effect and there's a general decrease in,
• 24:34
  in, in sort of people wanting to take up vaccines across the
• 24:37
  board, not just COVID vaccines. So we think that this is all
• 24:41
  part and parcel of a of a growing anti vaccine movement of
• 24:45
  of increasing hesitancy. And unfortunately, although they
• 24:49
  they come up with their various reasons for doing so, many of
• 24:52
  these due to a misinterpretation of data on the whole.
• 24:56
  But that they are now in a position of power.
• 25:00
  Yes, well, I mean obviously that's democracy.
• 25:03
  Personally, I, I very much hope that what's happening in the US
• 25:08
  to NIHCDC etcetera will not ever happen in this country because
• 25:12
  it really is undermining the ability of that country to do
• 25:16
  good evidence based science and. The entire government bodies.
• 25:20
  Well, let's go through what has seen Malhotra has been saying
• 25:24
  and has said in our interview, I mean, you know, right, right at
• 25:28
  the beginning, he, you know, he talks about prestigious
• 25:31
  publications and papers that have been written and this,
• 25:35
  these are the arguments you always see.
• 25:37
  That is the evidence. You know, here's the evidence.
• 25:40
  What? What's wrong with that?
• 25:42
  Well, I think most scientific knowledge is built on a wide
• 25:48
  spectrum of so-called prestigious publications.
• 25:51
  You don't just look at anyone paper in its entirety, despite
• 25:57
  you know, it may be published in the most reputable journal in
• 25:59
  the world, but afterwards that may or may not then be cited and
• 26:03
  carried on to future research. And, and it's about an
• 26:05
  accumulation of knowledge based upon multiple studies.
• 26:09
  And I should say that, you know, when it comes to vaccines, in
• 26:12
  particular the COVID vaccines, it's not just published articles
• 26:16
  that you see in peer reviewed publications that we have to go
• 26:18
  on. There's masses of publicly
• 26:20
  available data gathered by governments, Pharmaceutical
• 26:23
  industry and healthcare systems across the planet now about
• 26:28
  billions of doses of these vaccines.
• 26:31
  And, and we have much more information about these vaccines
• 26:33
  probably than than any other comparable vaccine on the
• 26:36
  planet. So when he talks about reading a
• 26:38
  paper in a prestigious publication that led him to
• 26:42
  think that, you know that they were really on to something, you
• 26:46
  know, why? Why?
• 26:47
  Why is he wrong about that? Well, it doesn't necessarily
• 26:50
  mean that it's wrong, but any scientific study is always a
• 26:53
  snapshot. It's always set up with
• 26:56
  controlled conditions and environments which lead you to
• 27:00
  be able to answer a specific question that you set out to do
• 27:02
  so. So just to say that this
• 27:04
  particular paper shows this, that and the other isn't, isn't
• 27:08
  always going to be the right way to go about it.
• 27:12
  So it's much better to look at multiple studies.
• 27:14
  Now he has his own personal experience of tragedy and that
• 27:17
  he lost his father who was a well known and respected Dr. But
• 27:21
  he he has he has latched on to this idea that COVID vaccines
• 27:30
  cause heart inflammation and cause more harm than good.
• 27:34
  Yes, it's it's very clear that some of the side effects of
• 27:39
  COVID vaccines and other vaccines and indeed virus
• 27:41
  infections can result in things like myocarditis, which is
• 27:46
  inflammation of the heart muscle or pericarditis, which is
• 27:49
  inflammation of the SAC around the heart.
• 27:51
  And both of these can be concerning OK for the specific
• 27:56
  case of the COVID vaccines. However, what doctor my culture
• 28:02
  is referring to is studies looking at the adverse effects
• 28:05
  and and not nothing else. OK, What you need to do is
• 28:08
  compare the effects of a vaccine not with not having a vaccine,
• 28:12
  but with the disease that they are designed to prevent you
• 28:16
  succumbing to. OK.
• 28:17
  So yes, it's true that particularly adolescent boys
• 28:22
  were quite prone to receiving to to getting a myocarditis in, in
• 28:29
  the event of their second RNA vaccine.
• 28:32
  However, that's still a very, very, very small proportion of
• 28:36
  the number of people that actually had a vaccine.
• 28:38
  OK. So yes, the risk is raised
• 28:40
  relative to the background population, but in fact, if you
• 28:43
  compare it to the risk of developing myocarditis as a
• 28:45
  result of SARS COV 2 infection, the virus that causes COVID,
• 28:49
  there is a much, much, much greater danger of a developing
• 28:53
  myocarditis from COVID. And indeed that myocarditis
• 28:56
  being incredibly severe enough to put you in hospital in
• 28:59
  intensive care. Whereas the myocarditis from
• 29:02
  vaccines is generally treatable with anti inflammatories and and
• 29:04
  some bed rest at worst. So there really it is important
• 29:10
  to not just group together these events as a a random occurrence,
• 29:15
  which which which was done in certain studies that I believe
• 29:18
  Doctor Mahatra referred to, because you have to associate
• 29:23
  those studies causatively between the outcomes and the
• 29:26
  vaccines. And that's not often done in
• 29:29
  some of these studies which just look at all the adverse events
• 29:31
  together. What you have to do.
• 29:33
  And this is and best illustrated, I think by those
• 29:36
  reporting systems that we have. Remember, we have huge amounts
• 29:39
  of surveillance for vaccines after they rolled out
• 29:41
  clinically. When people report something
• 29:44
  that happens close to when they've had a vaccine and they
• 29:48
  use these systems called the yellow card system in the UK or
• 29:51
  the vase system in America, that then has to be investigated as
• 29:55
  to see whether it's actually caused by the vaccine or not.
• 29:59
  And the vast majority of those associative claims are found not
• 30:03
  to be caused by the vaccine. However, it is true that these
• 30:07
  things happen and if you give billions of doses of vaccine,
• 30:11
  you will get a correspondingly large number of adverse events,
• 30:15
  even though it actually represents A vanishingly small
• 30:17
  percentage of of of people actually having those serious
• 30:21
  more serious problems. You know, these are not knife
• 30:23
  threatening problems in general. And to take your point about the
• 30:27
  cardiovascular disease as well, there is no sign whatsoever that
• 30:31
  increases in cardiovascular problems have happened in
• 30:34
  association with the vaccine roll out.
• 30:36
  But what there is very clear population level signs that
• 30:40
  studies with thousands and thousands of people and millions
• 30:42
  of people involved is that there is a huge sign of cardiovascular
• 30:47
  problems caused by COVID. And that's both sort of your
• 30:50
  myocardial infarction, your heart attack, inflammation of
• 30:53
  the heart and what have you. And it's also happening in
• 30:55
  younger people, which makes sense because these are the
• 30:57
  younger people contracting the virus and and accelerating their
• 31:00
  disease as a result. So I'm afraid that if you're
• 31:03
  saying that the vaccines haven't saved lives, that's patently
• 31:06
  untrue. Because if you remember in
• 31:09
  2020-2021 when we had these big waves of infection and there was
• 31:13
  a correspondingly huge wave of hospitalizations and deaths in
• 31:17
  the 10s of thousands back in 2020-2021, the vaccines have
• 31:21
  disconnected that huge prevalence with the severe
• 31:25
  disease. And that's what the vaccines
• 31:27
  were originally designed to do. They are there to prevent you
• 31:30
  becoming severely unwell from COVID.
• 31:32
  They're not there for anything else at the start.
• 31:34
  We hope to improve that. But it's important to remember
• 31:37
  that as we as we talk about these vaccines.
• 31:39
  So Doctor Malhotra says there were 500,000 yellow cards, you
• 31:43
  know, which makes it sound like a lot of people had adverse
• 31:48
  effects and that would be very worrying.
• 31:51
  Well, yes, but then you have to compare that to a number of
• 31:53
  vaccines that have been given out in the UK.
• 31:56
  So most of us have had at least two or three vaccines in this
• 31:59
  country. So that's hundreds of millions
• 32:00
  already. And then many people have had
• 32:02
  boosters. So that again, what I said about
• 32:05
  those yellow card events, the vast majority of them are
• 32:08
  associated, but they're not necessarily caused by the
• 32:11
  vaccine. So this is something which, you
• 32:14
  know, it's fantastic to have these reporting systems, but the
• 32:16
  reason they exist is it like an early warning system to see
• 32:20
  whether there is a problem. And they do work, they work
• 32:23
  incredibly well. And the, the best example of
• 32:25
  that is the AZ vaccine, which we discovered to cause very, very
• 32:31
  rare blood clot problems in younger women.
• 32:35
  But that was only apparent after millions and millions of people
• 32:38
  had had that vaccine because of the rarity of this problem, this
• 32:42
  reaction. And remember, a vaccine adverse
• 32:45
  reaction is exactly that. It's your immune response to the
• 32:47
  vaccine that's actually causing the problem, not the vaccine
• 32:49
  itself. So the yellow cards and, and
• 32:52
  other surveillance systems across Europe started to spot
• 32:55
  this. And of course, they stopped
• 32:57
  giving it to that at risk group and they changed the way it was
• 32:59
  rolled out. So, you know, these systems do
• 33:02
  work. The reason that there hasn't
• 33:04
  been a response associated with cardiovascular disease in
• 33:08
  response to these yellow cards is not because people are
• 33:10
  ignoring them. It's because they weren't
• 33:11
  actually attributable to the vaccine.
• 33:13
  Now the whole vaccine skeptic movement claim the data is
• 33:16
  tainted, it's corrupt, it's you know, it lacks transparency.
• 33:20
  You know how much of that has any merit?
• 33:24
  Well, I think it really depends on what data they're referring
• 33:27
  to. So you find on a quite a lot of
• 33:30
  the times that they are, as we said just before focusing on one
• 33:34
  aspect of a paper that they find supports their, their narrative.
• 33:38
  A lot of the time. We have to also remember that
• 33:42
  the initial studies were small, they got bigger.
• 33:45
  And now we have vast wealth of data from population from the
• 33:49
  entire planet having received. I mean, obviously there's,
• 33:52
  there's differences in vaccine availability, but the entire
• 33:55
  planet has received multiple doses of these vaccine.
• 33:57
  Billions of doses have been given.
• 33:59
  There is a vast amount of information out there.
• 34:02
  Now, that's not just the drugs companies which conducted the
• 34:06
  initial trials. And yes, they have to do those
• 34:09
  trials because they're also the only people that are prepared to
• 34:12
  invest the money to generate these medicines.
• 34:14
  It's the way our world works. If we need to, if you want to
• 34:17
  change that, governments have to step up and invest in developing
• 34:19
  medicines, which I think would be an excellent thing.
• 34:21
  But the drugs companies, you know, you can't have your cake
• 34:25
  and eat it. You either ask the drug
• 34:26
  companies to make the medicines and conduct the trials and so
• 34:29
  you therefore collect the data or you don't have medicines.
• 34:32
  So I'm not sure what the solution is for that other than
• 34:35
  governments to do it, which I would love to see for
• 34:38
  therapeutics as well as vaccines.
• 34:40
  But the, the point is that, that, that these, these, these
• 34:44
  drug companies have to achieve a certain standard of data to get
• 34:48
  these parts to regulators. They have to, they don't always
• 34:51
  succeed. Something about 20% of
• 34:54
  applications to the FDA don't get approved.
• 34:56
  So it's not a rigged system. And these drug companies invest
• 34:59
  billions and billions of dollars and pounds in doing this.
• 35:03
  So unless we're prepared to do something different, we can't
• 35:06
  ever change that. So you're, you're stuck in that
• 35:08
  scenario. So you can, you can make up
• 35:11
  conspiracies about how the pharmaceutical companies are
• 35:14
  biased or what have you. And of course they want to get a
• 35:16
  return on their product. Of course they are.
• 35:18
  But if you entrust businesses to do that, you have to expect them
• 35:21
  to have a businesslike output so that that's the simplestity of.
• 35:24
  It I mean he, he, and, and they also say, well, you know, the
• 35:27
  thing about other experts and scientists like you is that you
• 35:30
  won't bite the hand that feeds you and that these drug
• 35:32
  companies feed your research. Well, I I did have a very small
• 35:36
  grant from Pfizer once about 15 years ago, I think it was for
• 35:39
  £10,000 to get a project started.
• 35:42
  I also consulted for them once on their Paxilovid, their drug,
• 35:45
  the trials they were doing from that.
• 35:47
  But again, where else would scientists get funding from?
• 35:52
  I think there are alternative routes for funding in other
• 35:55
  countries, so philanthropy for example.
• 35:58
  But if you want to talk about conflicts of interest, then then
• 36:01
  maybe that's an even harder argument to have.
• 36:03
  So I think that, you know, most scientists obtain their funding
• 36:07
  from governments, but the funding agencies, they have
• 36:09
  legal declarations that they're, they don't have any say in the
• 36:14
  research that's produced as a result of that funding.
• 36:17
  That's part of the contract you sign when you're awarded a grant
• 36:20
  from government. It's also true for
• 36:22
  pharmaceutical companies. How?
• 36:23
  Frustrating. Is it for you to see these
• 36:26
  arguments resurface? Well, they've been.
• 36:30
  Horribly, yeah. They've been horribly prevalent,
• 36:32
  actually. But I think it's been recently
• 36:35
  emboldened by what happened in America recently.
• 36:38
  But social media is is it's, it's full of these sorts of
• 36:43
  stories of skeptics. I imagine that I will probably
• 36:46
  receive blowback from doing this podcast on my Twitter slash X
• 36:52
  account and, and on blue sky because people get very angry
• 36:56
  about it. And, and I think it really is an
• 36:58
  important thing to deal with. And I don't think it's something
• 37:03
  that should be dealt with at the sort of, you know, public level.
• 37:06
  And it needs to be from the top. These people need to provide
• 37:10
  guidance and because they, the, the power of this anti vaccine
• 37:14
  narrative is immense. I, I think we're going to talk
• 37:17
  about measles soon, but it struck me that the very, very
• 37:23
  sad case of one of the children who died in Texas who hadn't
• 37:28
  been vaccinated by the parents. There was an interview with the
• 37:32
  parents after the poor child had died and they actually said it
• 37:35
  was the right thing to do not to vaccinate him despite the loss
• 37:38
  of a child. Those parents are as much
• 37:40
  victims of this sort of narrative as as almost as that,
• 37:43
  but obviously not the same as the child dying.
• 37:45
  But, you know, the whole problem with this is that this is
• 37:48
  undermining decades of public health standards that we've
• 37:53
  built up through childhood vaccination schemes.
• 37:55
  And yes, in an emergency to Quella pandemic.
• 37:58
  And and this is having a huge knock on effect across the
• 38:00
  board. Now he wants to get these
• 38:05
  vaccines banned in America, and he says that now is the time
• 38:08
  because Covid's no longer deadly.
• 38:10
  There are people dying of COVID still, but I suppose it's
• 38:14
  correct that it's not deadly on the same scale as it was.
• 38:17
  Right. Again, this this depends on
• 38:19
  whether you're thinking about populations or if you're
• 38:22
  thinking about individuals, OK, So on an individual basis, if
• 38:25
  you've been vaccinated, a chance of, of, of you, you know,
• 38:29
  developing A COVID infection and then dying is much, much smaller
• 38:32
  now than it was in 2020-2021. OK, That, that much is
• 38:36
  abundantly clear. But the problem is that because
• 38:39
  we are all distinct individuals, we respond to vaccines
• 38:42
  differently. So this virus hasn't lost its
• 38:44
  teeth. What makes us able to not have
• 38:48
  these problems that we had at the beginning of the pandemic is
• 38:50
  the fact that we've been immunized, the fact that we have
• 38:52
  antivirals and the fact that we understand how to clinically
• 38:56
  manage this disease much better with anti-inflammatory treatment
• 38:59
  as well for severe disease. So if you don't use those tools,
• 39:02
  if you stop vaccinating people, you are then at increased risk.
• 39:06
  And I should also mention that the first exposure to a virus is
• 39:09
  always the most dangerous. And so for children who are not
• 39:12
  being vaccinated and who are young, below 5 years old,
• 39:17
  there's actually quite a significant risk of them causing
• 39:20
  having problems with with COVID and indeed other respiratory
• 39:23
  viruses. Now the the other big issue that
• 39:25
  RFK Junior has reopened is measles and vaccination.
• 39:30
  And he has, he has resurfaced this old theory of a link
• 39:36
  between vaccines and autism, which was totally debunked and
• 39:40
  it was shown that there was no link between vaccines and
• 39:43
  autism. And yet RFK Junior is having a
• 39:46
  new investigation into it now, Doctor Malhotra says.
• 39:49
  Well, there's so much scepticism out there.
• 39:52
  It's a good thing to look into these things and tell people
• 39:54
  definitively. Right.
• 39:56
  Well, I, I, I think you're right.
• 39:58
  I think it's already been definitively shown that that's
• 40:00
  not the case. And my view of that is that
• 40:04
  you're on, on the one hand saying, look, we're being open
• 40:07
  and honest and investigating this.
• 40:09
  But I also think that if you're reinvestigating something that's
• 40:12
  already been settled and settled by very large studies.
• 40:16
  Then you're actually casting doubts upon those previous
• 40:19
  studies, for one. And I also think that public
• 40:22
  opinion will will start to say, well, there's no smoke without
• 40:25
  fire. And I think that that that
• 40:27
  hesitancy around the MMR vaccine has been steadily growing since
• 40:31
  the study you mentioned by Andrew Wakefield was published
• 40:33
  in The Lancet all those years ago.
• 40:35
  And it hasn't stopped. And we've seen a depreciation of
• 40:37
  uptake of childhood vaccines as a result of that study.
• 40:40
  And, and it's actually a common facet of disinformation and
• 40:43
  misinformation actually, you know, they can plant those seeds
• 40:46
  out there. It takes so much more work to
• 40:48
  debunk it and disprove it than it does to just start that
• 40:53
  rumour going. So the investigation itself is
• 40:55
  damaging. Yeah, I I would say so because
• 40:58
  you're saying no smoke without fire.
• 40:59
  This is veneer of respectability and saying that we're being open
• 41:02
  about this. But if you were satisfied with
• 41:04
  those previous studies and actually a lot is known about
• 41:07
  various genetic causes of autism, although it's an
• 41:10
  incredibly complicated process, you know, it's not triggered by
• 41:14
  vaccination, certainly not the MMR vaccines I.
• 41:17
  Mean this is all justified by what they say is a is a fall in
• 41:20
  trust in the medical profession. Do you think that's real and
• 41:24
  what do you think is causing it? I'd say there's an element of
• 41:27
  chicken and egg there. So I think hesitancy and
• 41:30
  mistrust has grown dramatically since 2020.
• 41:32
  And people blame social media and they blame various
• 41:36
  conspiracies and all the rest of it.
• 41:38
  And I do think social media has a role, but I also think that
• 41:41
  there's a lot of very good information out there.
• 41:43
  I, I think we could do more to educate people.
• 41:46
  So, you know, and there are also some policy problems that, that,
• 41:49
  that, that can cause issues as well.
• 41:52
  So for example, when we cut our childhood COVID vaccine program
• 41:56
  in the UK that was celebrated by anti vaccine movements in
• 41:59
  America, you know, it's a, that this is a sign.
• 42:02
  Look, they must know that this is causing damage.
• 42:04
  They twist things to not mean what they're actually meant to
• 42:08
  be. So it's it's really important
• 42:10
  that we educate people to the value of these things.
• 42:13
  But. Overall, how worried are you
• 42:15
  that people who hold these views are now in power in America?
• 42:20
  Incredibly worried, yeah. And, and also worried that the
• 42:24
  the sort of narrative that we're seeing there will spread.
• 42:28
  And I think they'll probably get away with it for a few years
• 42:30
  because it won't be evident that that what they do damages things
• 42:34
  for a few years. But it's already having
• 42:37
  tremendous effects on research infrastructure, on public
• 42:40
  health. But at the same time, they're
• 42:42
  dismantling various systems. They're also not now monitoring
• 42:46
  them. So the problem kind of goes away
• 42:48
  until it really does rear its ugly head, like in the measles
• 42:51
  outbreak. So, yeah, I find it completely
• 42:53
  against the spirit of public health that I worry for the
• 42:55
  people in America. I worry for my friends and and
• 42:59
  colleagues that I know working in America and research.
• 43:02
  And clinically, I worry as well that the sort of vilification so
• 43:06
  against, you know, directed against people like Tony Fauci,
• 43:08
  etcetera, Peter Hotez, Peter Hotez, who by the way, has
• 43:13
  developed a COVID vaccine for free, independent of
• 43:16
  pharmaceutical companies and given it to 10s of thousands of
• 43:18
  people. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's a,
• 43:24
  it's not how science should be. It's, it's a politically
• 43:27
  motivated change in the way that people are doing things.
• 43:31
  And it's being justified by this big sort of veneer of trying to
• 43:36
  do good. And, you know, I don't doubt
• 43:39
  that there are improvements people could address in terms of
• 43:43
  lifestyle both here and in America.
• 43:46
  But the root cause of most of these issues, and there have
• 43:48
  been really good careful studies on this, is the poverty gap and
• 43:52
  impoverished regions in different countries and the
• 43:55
  difference between rich and poor and different social groups.
• 43:58
  Those are the root causes of the societal issues that we have in
• 44:01
  terms of health, and until they address those sorts of issues, I
• 44:05
  don't think that that some of the things that they're
• 44:07
  proposing will have any benefit whatsoever, I'm afraid.
• 44:10
  Stephen Griffin, thank you very much.
• 44:12
  And that's it for this edition of the FORECAST.
• 44:14
  Until next time, bye bye.